I have a BCM hen that just started laying. This is about the 5th egg that she has layed. Should I cull her! If I breed her with a cockerel from a dark egg line will it improve color in future generations?
That egg is like our Cuckoo Marans egg and was a disappointment to us also. We re-homed our Cuckoo and our friend re-homed their BCMs because we found them too aggressive in our layer flock. Otherwise I might've kept our Cuckoo if she wasn't so "cuckoo"!!!! If you want dark eggs I wouldn't keep your girl for breeding unless you have a limited stock to breed from. #4 is still a pretty egg but I've seen Sexlinks lay the same color. Welsummers lay pretty terra cotta eggs in all sorts of speckled patterns. That was one thing that was interesting about our Cuckoo's eggs -- sometimes they were all brown, half-brown-half darker brown, large dark speckles, small spotty speckles, no speckles -- she layed something different every time!
she hatched out of a stunning dark egg so I expected so much more from her. Especially with the cost of the eggs I bought.
